The final results of the comparative analysis of the regional YG schemes carried out from a time perspective approach in this study are presented in Table 12. It indicates that while four regions (Brussels-Capital, Lombardy, South West Scotland, and North-Brabant) have reached a medium level of Europeanisation, one of them (East Slovakia) presents a low level. Interestingly, all four case studies ranked at the medium level present an institutional-oriented form of compliance, indicating that countries and regions are facing stronger difficulties in ensuring early intervention and diversification of the services offered to the NEETs. Again, such scores should be read with caution as they do not fully reveal the quality of the services provided to young people but rather assess whether the policy changes accomplished since 2014 have allowed regions to comply, from a policy design perspective, with the Council Recommendation’s requirements. Furthermore, it does not mean that no compliance efforts have been made with respect to certain aspects in Slovakia. Nevertheless, such efforts have not sufficed to fit with the EU requirements. The different results are also to be explained by the fact that countries/regions did not start from the same baseline. Whereas some of them already had a well-established scheme to better integrate young people, others had to start from further away. Moreover, evaluating the implementation of the YG plans and the different YG-related reforms could lead to very different results than the ones coming from the design analysis.
Table 12: Degree of Europeanisation for the five regional case studies
Degree of Europeanisation/ Case studies Low Medium – design oriented Medium - institutional oriented Medium - balanced Full Brussels-Capital x East Slovakia x Lombardy x
South West Scotland x
North-Brabant x
Leaving the case studies’ scores aside, the analysis provides relevant input for policy conclusions that are pertinent for both the national and regional level.
Starting with general conclusions for the national level, one can note that most EU countries have ‘played the game’ set by the 2013 Council Recommendation as all member states have submitted their implementation plan to the European Commission. They are also reporting on progress made as part of the annual reporting process on ESF and YEI (ESF Regulation 1304/2013) or via the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). In the same vein, this study has shown that, generally speaking, compliance
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efforts have been made in the policy design of the YG scheme to fulfil the main criteria of the Council Recommendation.
These efforts are even more encouraging given that youth unemployment has been reduced across the EU, including in countries that were particularly hit by the economic downturn and where the situation of young people was alarming. The causal link between such improvements and the YG can always be matter of debate. However, it is indisputable that the European initiative has pushed most member states to launch a series of important reforms in the area of education and labour market policies. Furthermore, the strategic documents – i.e. the national YG implementation plans, the different OPs, the National Reform Programmes, and the country reports of the European Commission – that served as basis for the analysis of this study, show that countries are adopting a much more integrated approach on youth policies, at least in the policy design. Thus, the YG has allowed members states (and also regions) to become more aware of their structural problems and to provide policy solutions in a more structured and coherent manner. This is particularly obvious with regard to policy evaluation. Given that monitoring is one of the key requirements of the European Commission to receive YEI money, major efforts have been made to strengthen the monitoring system. This is a very welcoming step as it enables member states (and also the regions) to better appreciate the diversity of the NEETs population and to further adapt policies according to the specific needs of each of its subgroup. Furthermore, the YG has certainly helped increase the level of attention devoted to youth unemployment by putting it at the top of the European policy agenda and reinforcing peer- pressure in the area.
At the regional level, one can observe that some of the YG schemes are more developed than what is provided by the national framework. This is particularly true for countries where there is a high degree of devolution and where regions have key competencies in YG-related policy areas, such as Brussels- Capital, Lombardy and Scotland. In some cases, such as Scotland, we can even notice a better compliance of the regional scheme than the one provided by the national level. Thus, although regions might perform better in terms of compliance, it is also important to remember that the institutional setting of each country can create difficulties and thus require extra effort in terms of coordination and collaboration between the different stakeholders. This is, for instance, the case in Brussels-Capital where competencies pertaining to the YG implementation are split between several political authorities, which are often led by different political forces, and a large number of different stakeholders. In such a context, if extra coordination effort is not provided, the success of the YG is likely to be undermined.
Going beyond general considerations, undeniable weaknesses still persist in many of the YG schemes and there is certainly an uneven level of Europeanisation. In other words, while compliance efforts have been made across the board, they have not led, however, to the same degree of convergence for each specific criteria of the Council Recommendation. In fact, the case study analysis shows that in most cases, the national and regional YG schemes have been mostly developed in line with domestic traditions of welfare and activation policies. Although this is not necessarily negative when previous programmes already proved to be successful, this highlights the strong path dependency logic that member states and regions follow. Furthermore, this indicates that adopting a more innovative approach might require a profound change of mind set and functioning that probably takes longer than the two years since the YG launch.
Among the main weaknesses, it is worth highlighting four of them. Firstly, for some countries it is difficult to get a clear overall picture of the different initiatives undertaken by the country and/or region. In some cases, one observes a multiplicity of actions and measures that are rapidly changing over time and follow on from each other without any apparent logic rather than a coherent package with well-defined objectives. Thus, it is worth questioning, in such cases, whether the complementarity of the different measures has been well assessed beforehand.
71 Another observation that comes out strongly from the comparative analysis is the disconnection made by many member states between activation and protection measures. While a lot of effort has been made with respect to activation measures, access to financial support has become more difficult when not cut back. Such a strategy seems therefore to neglect the complementarity that exists between activation and protection measures. While some argue that it might lead to higher degree of activation, it might also increase the vulnerability of certain groups of young people and discourage them to register with the relevant authorities/services.
Thirdly, the partnership approach seems to be implemented in very different ways. Depending on which partnership patterns were already established before the YG, some countries and regions favour cooperation with some stakeholders while neglecting the positive role that others could play. Generally speaking, one sees that little attention has been devoted to youth organisations (European Youth Forum, 2015) and that better cooperation could occur between the education/training system and employment services as well as with social services.
Fourthly, despite increased awareness about the need to reach out to the non-registered NEETs, efforts in this respect seem to be very fragmented. They are not placed at the centre of the national/regional strategies. In fact, a focus on the ‘most employable young people’ is most often more rewarding both from a statistical and financial viewpoint. A faster re-integration on the labour market is more likely for this group and less investment is therefore required.
In order to further improve the YG services delivery and the future prospects of young people, this paper suggests a set of policy recommendations that should be seriously considered by both European as well as national/local authorities when developing future youth-related policies. These recommendations can be grouped in three main categories, i.e. the complementarity of policies, the institutional design and the monitoring/reporting system.
About policy complementarity:
1. Adopting an integrated approach between the different measures developed under the YG is of key importance. Activation and protection measures should be designed as two complementary parts of a coherent package. Thus, it is crucial to ensure that the European governance looks into the overall coherence of youth-related measures while preventing young people to fall into the poverty trap.
2. Many member states focus their attention and actions on young people who are relatively easy to re-integrate on the labour market. Increased attention should be devoted to the non-registered NEETs and on how to reach out to them. Furthermore, this group of NEETs requires more investment and money per individual than those who are already registered with the system. This is something that needs to be considered in the future criteria ruling the disbursement of the YEI money and in the amount that will be agreed upon during the upcoming review of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).
About institutional design:
1. The institutional framework in which the YG is deployed is of utmost relevance as a multiplication of stakeholders involved in the service delivery and a lack of coordination between the relevant authorities are likely to weaken the YG scheme and the quality of the services. Member states should therefore ensure that the YG is built upon a supportive institutional environment and that its implementation is driven by a broad consensus regardless of the political forces that are in charge over time.
2. Some of the case studies analysed in the paper face significant difficulties in ensuring that the different services (be it employment, education or social services) coordinate their respective offer. This has a number of harmful consequences on both providing young people with the best
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quality offer and ensuring a comprehensive monitoring. Thus, member states and the EU should ensure that different services are well coordinated and that young people can get a clear overview of the different offers via a single contact point.
About the monitoring and reporting system:
1. Paying particular attention to how long a young person stays unemployed or a NEET is key as the longer the duration, the more scarring effects it has. Hence, all national monitoring systems should take this aspect into consideration and not limit themselves to look at the volume of youth unemployment and NEETs. Moreover, the duration of the period is a good proxy for indicating how responsive and adequate YG services are. Lastly, European data should not only provide information about the NEETs subgroups by status (unemployed or inactive) but also about how long a young person remains under a given status.
2. Public employment services and member states in general are reluctant to integrate the most vulnerable and disengaged NEETs, i.e. the ones who are not registered, in their statistics as it will contribute to increase the youth unemployment rate and darken the results of their actions. Thus, it is crucial to involve additional organisations, such as NGOs or social services working with the most disengaged, in collecting data and to accompany them in building up such expertise.
3. Working with disengaged NEETs is often a lengthy process and does not lead to immediate results. Return on investment is therefore long-term and uncertain. If member states and the EU are serious about re-engaging them, be it via the education/training system or the labour market, the monitoring system both at the national and European level should grant sufficient time to social services to do their job. In other words, another methodology should be applied for this group of NEETs and less emphasis should be placed on immediate results.
4. It is likely that young people will benefit from a given YG offer and will enter the scheme again once this offer has come to an end, in particular if this latter was not in line with the expectations of the young person or with poor learning content. Therefore, data collection should move away from a mere focus on quantity and should better integrate the notions of flows and quality. In other words, data collection should reflect individual trajectories. In fact, it is of key importance to see how a young person has developed and whether the YG allowed a long-term integration on the labour market.
To conclude, this paper has shown that the YG has triggered some policy changes but in an incremental way rather than in a radical manner. The main weaknesses of the schemes still lay, in fact, in the areas where member states and regions have been weak historically. That being said, the potential of the YG, in particular with respect to the EU monitoring requirement, in triggering important structural reforms should not be neglected. It is therefore crucial to recall the importance of prolonging the financing of the YG in the second half of the current MFF – not only given the positive impact it is likely to have on young people but also from a political viewpoint. The Brexit vote has shown once again the gap between citizens and the European project. Investing directly in people while improving their life is the only way to reconcile the two. But it should be done in a balanced manner and add value to actions already undertaken by other governance levels. Thus, European support should be designed in a way that does not create a disproportionate administrative burden for national and regional authorities and focus on areas where member states are weak or reluctant to act. In other words, the EU support should concentrate on matters where innovative thinking (such as the outreach strategy towards the non-registered NEETs, such as migrants) is necessary and where actions would be neglected otherwise.
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